LIBERTY — an extract
 

The current took me in an instant, possessing everything soft in my head. It clamped down my jaw, descending through my arched spine to the ends of all my nerves. My muscles began to convulse. I could no longer control them. All I could do was lay there, buzzing through my gritted teeth until everything went dark.

     Then I fell limp. The mattress slipped away and I couldn’t feel anything anymore, nothing touching my face, my back or my feet. I was floating on a still lake with no water, spiralling further and further from the faintly buzzing bed until it was gone. Then, for a few minutes it was silent. In the darkness it made no difference whether my eyes were open or shut, so I kept them closed. I wondered if I had died, almost laughing at how little I cared. If this was death, I liked it. It was strange, but at least it was calm. I let my mind go blank, soaking in the stillness until I heard something. A wailing alarm. I couldn’t quite remember where I had heard it from. My instinct was to hide, but curiosity prevailed. As it got louder the vibration became my anchor. I followed behind until the sound reached its summit and my feet met land.

     Then it stopped. Beside me a lamppost blinked on, revealing a grove of oak trees. Amongst the trees were rows and rows of narrow houses. Paving stones were set into the grass, painted by the parallel clouds and the specks of rain beginning to fall. I wondered whether it was real. It had been a while since I had seen a lit lamppost and I was instantly uneasy. I couldn’t help but imagine how the lamps would look from the sky, pinprick beacons to the German pilots. A few of the structures had holes in the walls. Some were almost entirely demolished and covered in ash. My eyes rested on an unscathed building with barred windows when a chord of familiarity was struck. It was my window. I counted along, the next one must be the doctor’s office, his window unbarred and bound up by diamonds of Splinternet tape. On the other side, Victoria’s room. I held my breath, but nobody seemed to be inside. I sunk at the thought that I had left her behind. I remembered the forest we used to play in as children, the smell of pollen and fallen leaves. I found myself wandering closer.

     A bolt of lightning flashed behind the houses, illuminating a shape in the sky. It looked like some kind of bird. An eagle? I began to step backwards, edging away slowly so it wouldn’t notice me, when the wailing sound returned, deafeningly loud. This time I knew what it was. Then I heard a different whining as I saw a vast black egg fall from the eagle onto the doctor’s roof. There was a flash of fire as it hit, bricks spewing onto the cobblestones as a crack of thunder detonated.

***

“As if it never happened.”

     Doctor Williams was the first thing I saw. Smoke spewed from his nostrils, swirling up behind his round glasses into his watery eyes. I coughed as he dismantled the headband from my temples. All he had said was that I would experience some memory loss. I remembered his patronising tone exactly when he had told me; that’s the beauty of this procedure, you’ll wake up with no recollection of it ever happening, but I could remember everything.

     I stared past him as he took the bite guard out of my mouth, and gradually untied all of the straps which held me flat to the stretcher. He was an efficient man but he was being deliberately slow. I imagined that this was both to agonise me, and to create the illusion that he was considerate and caring, all for the sake of my mother sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her glancing around tentatively, clearly unimpressed by the cold, characterless walls.

     “How are you feeling, Ada?”

     “My head hurts.” I murmured without looking at her.

     “All normal symptoms, I assure you, Mrs Stephens,”

     “And when can we expect to see results?”

     In my peripherals I saw my mother smile politely in the way that she always does. My mood soured further.

     “It’s difficult to say, it’s quite a new technique and the results can vary. You know our most effective treatment is—”

     “Yes, I know, you’ve already explained, but I think it should be a last resort.”

     I smiled privately. The doctor stubbed out his cigarette and deftly transitioned to small talk. I found it difficult to follow their conversation, partially because I was still whirling from my treatment, but also because I wasn’t expecting to wake up. I thought death had freed me. I thought the war had ended.

     “How’s Victoria doing with her treatment?”

     The name pricked my ears.

     “She responded excellently, I was able to discharge her last week!”

     I felt him watching for my reaction. It had to be a lie, otherwise he would never have said it in front of me.

     “Oh, how marvellous,” my mother smiled, but her voice was quiet.

     “I don’t feel well,” I said, “May I be excused?”

     “Not yet, I still need to examine you,” replied the doctor, firmly pressing a new bruise on my calf. I flinched my leg out of his grip and shot him a dark look.

     “That hurts,” I snapped.

     “Adeline, please.”

     “It’s quite alright, I’m used to it.”

     Mother smiled at him apologetically. She always sided with him. I wished that I really had died. It would be my revenge on them both, one which the doctor could never punish me for. I let out a small, dry laugh.

     “Are you lucid?” he prodded, an edge of feigned concern creeping into his voice.

     I ignored him. He angled my face towards him, inspecting my pupils. His thick, yellowed fingers stank of ash. I couldn’t stand to look at his eyes so I looked at his sallow hair instead. There wasn’t one strand breaching the slicked line of his parting.

     “Do you know what day it is?”

     “The 28th of March.”

     “Correct.”

     He let my face go, but leaned on me he stood, sending a hot spark of agony through my forearm. I yelped, shocked to discover a purple stain blooming across the underside. It was long and thin, like the metal bars on the bed.

     “What’s the matter?” asked the doctor, then when he noticed the injury he leapt up before Mother could react. I winced as he examined it, holding my breath to stop me from crying out, wondering if he had leaned on it on purpose.

     “I don’t think it's broken,” he declared.

     Mother sighed with relief. I could hardly look at her anymore. Any good mother would have jumped out of her seat. I watched how she folded into the wooden chair, a pathetic look about her brows as she gazed at me, static.

     “That must have happened during the seizure when the strap came loose, these things are to be expected,” said the doctor to Mother.

     “You hit your arm on the bed frame, I had to strap you back in,” she said slowly, nodding at me like I’d find it hard to understand.

     Then I knew I was going to cry. I felt a familiar tingle in the bridge of my nose as my lashes became wet. I hoped no-one would notice, but of course Mother did. She tried to calm me down, but I didn’t want to be comforted by her. I tried to communicate but my words became a wail, ripping its way from my throat. I pushed her away, but she resisted and kept trying to come near, so I pushed harder and harder until I was almost hitting her. Then the doctor came and grabbed my injured arm, twisting me face down onto the narrow bed.

***

“Forgive me, but you look dreadful.”

     Doctor Williams bowed his chin to get a proper look at me over his glasses. I kept my eyes down. I didn’t care in the least how I looked. I knew my eyelids were swollen because I couldn’t fully open my eyes. They always did that after I cried, not to mention I had barely slept last night. One arm and one leg had been tied to the bed and my bruise throbbed inside a chalky plaster cast, but what kept me up the most were thoughts of Victoria being gone. I told myself that he was lying, that I would have noticed, but my mind just kept whirring with what if what if what if. And then there was the strange dream I’d had, so while my eardrums were ringing with doubts, behind my eyes flew the eagle in the storm. The doctor ambled to a nearby chair, sweeping across it with a hanky before sitting on the edge of it,

     “Well, do you have anything to say for yourself? Your little display yesterday was unladylike to say the least”

     I brushed away the specks of plaster from my cast. They looked like broken eggshells sprinkled over the yellowing floor tiles.

     “Ada, I do wish you wouldn’t ignore me all the time, it’s quite rude. I hope it won’t continue in todays session. Tell me, how are you feeling?”

     Dreadful.

     “The same,” I replied. My throat was dry from the stale smoke in the air.

     “Your mother will be disappointed. She was very upset when I told her about the letter. She must be so lonely with your father at war and Toby evacuated, then what do you do when she comes to visit you? Attack her.”

     Guilt curled my toes. I shouldn’t have pushed her. She looked so shocked. But if it weren’t for Mother I wouldn’t be here. Of everything I felt, the least unbearable was resentment, so I used it to extinguish everything else. Silence extended as the doctor waited for a response. I eventually mustered a reluctant, “Sorry.”

     The doctor continued, “If it were up to me, I’d call in the surgeon. You’d be tamer with less input from your prefrontal lobe.”

     “Mother said it should be a last resort.”

     “But lobotomies are so popular, and very quick. Much easier than, say, removing your ovaries, although you could do with less of those hormones making you so muddled up.”

     “No thank you,” I said,

     “I’m trying to help you, Adeline. You act as if I’m trying to insult you. The fact of the matter is that there is something very wrong with you. It’s why you’re here. So, if you don’t want us to have to resort to surgery, you’ll have to show me you’re trying to get better,”

     He removed his wire-framed glasses and leaned forward in his chair, deliberately trying to meet my gaze as he challenged, “And the first step towards getting better is, of course, admitting that you have a problem. Show me you aren’t a denier anymore. Tell me why you’re here.”

      I stared stubbornly at my plaster-flecked knees. Blood pooled under my skin, rising into my cheeks, filling up my mouth. I couldn’t say what he wanted me to. Instead I muttered a half-truth, teeth scraping my spongy inner lips,

     “I don’t know.”

     “Come along, we’ve been through this time and again.”

     He got so close that I was forced to look at him, the veins glistening around his irises in clear focus. I could feel his breath as he repeated, “Why are you here?”

     I knew he wouldn’t stop until I yielded. I mumbled into my shoulder,

     “Because I’m confused.”

     “Correct.”

     The doctor relented,

     “If you say it enough times, one day you’ll believe it.”

     He put his glasses back on and gestured for me to leave. There was an attendant dressed entirely in starched white, beckoning for me impatiently in the hallway. We began towards my room, my eyes on the dull white floor, when I noticed a black thread a few feet in front of us. I remained neutral, careful not to give anything away to the attendant. It was all wiggly and bent double. As we got closer I realised it was a hair pin, like the ones Mother has. Perhaps it came loose during her visit yesterday. Just as we got to the pin I pretended to trip, clutching my arm to shield it from the fall.

     “Be more careful,” the attendant scolded.

      As we approached Victoria’s door, my breathing began to feel constricted. I didn’t want anything to distract me from this crucial section of corridor. This was my chance to see if the doctor had been lying. As I had since the day we both arrived, I held my breath and closed my eyes, listening for any slight movement. A bed creaking, fabric rustling, a sigh or a shoe scraping the floor. The attendant was breathing heavily in an infinitely frustrating way. I heard the hall clock ticking and some car engines revving outside. I squeezed my eyelids together. We had almost passed Victoria’s door and were heading for the doctor’s office. I shuffled, stealing as many seconds as I could. I heard a strange interrupted buzzing, like a bluebottle against a windowpane, but no sign of Victoria. The further away we got the more infuriating it became. At the last moment I hurled my head around, eyes wide, lungs aching, praying for a sound. Anything. But there was nothing. My breath shakily left me.

     Maybe she really is gone.

     We reached my room and the attendant thrust me inside. I fell to the floor, lying curled and fragile like a dry autumn leaf. I thought about the letter I had written for her, she would never read it now. Unless the doctor had showed her after all and they had laughed together about it. It felt like crying again, but didn’t have the energy. My forehead creased and weighed my thickened eyelids shut. Behind them was the eagle and the memory of the solace of the dark.

***

Waking up was usually a painful process, returning from the cocoon of sleep to face another day of therapy. This morning was different. I had dreamed about the eagle again. As I lowered myself slowly from the stretcher, sliding on my slippers and cardigan gently over my sling, I remembered how cold the forest-town was. My dress had been saturated by rain and my hair was stuck to my face. I had to peer through the dark strands to see how the rainwater rasped against the wreck of this building, rivulets of vapour rising white against billows of grey smoke. I had only just been able to make out the eagle, sitting behind the scorched walls on the doctor’s redwood desk. Then, it sprang up onto the splintered window frame, extending its wings. I remembered how its silhouette was irradiated with lightning as it turned to point its eye at me, and how it had screeched for another bolt to strike me before I was jolted awake. I should have been unnerved, but the image of the eagle on the broken window had given me a realisation which dulled my usual ache.

     As I finished tying my hair into a loose plait, I noticed a moth with feathery antenna sitting on the wall. It was spreading out its tortoiseshell wings, trying to camouflage itself. Fat chance, I thought, scanning the pallid room. The window could be opened a tiny bit, so I clasped the moth in my hands, trying not to damage the powdery wings I could feel flitting on my palms, and set it free. I pressed my face to the gap, trying to see it fly away, breathing in the cool air. I thought it was actually a lovely morning. I suppose that was the effect of knowing it would be my last one.

      Today was Friday, so the doctor had one of his fortnightly ‘psychiatry meetings’. He always comes back stinking of spirits with a renewed air of impatience. I heard him open and close his office door, whistling down the corridor. Not long after he left, I heard his attendants make their way to the communal room, as they always do, muttering that they don’t get paid enough. Then I waited for another ten minutes, in case the doctor forgot something and to give the attendants time to convene. They only needed five. When I was sure it was safe, I pulled the hair pin out of my cast and slid it into the lock.

     The doctor’s office had the only unbarred window, the eagle had reminded me. I had noticed it from the outside when I was first brought here. That day was also the only time I had seen inside the doctors study. I had stolen a glance and smelled a whisper of wood polish before mother went in to discuss my treatments, alone. I hadn’t seen much, only that the walls weren’t white like all the rest and the large redwood desk by the window. I would go in, find the letter that the doctor had stolen and write my goodbyes on the back of it. That way his reputation would be demolished when they found it in my pocket. Then I’d jump. Backwards, so I could look at the sky. I reviewed everything excitedly, scrutinising and refining every stage in my head as I worked the pin in the lock. After a while I became anxious that I wouldn’t even get past step one, but the mechanism eventually gave. As expected, there were no attendants at their posts, so I quietly closed my door and darted down the hall to the doctor’s office. Every noise made me wince. My hands shook as I jolted the hair pin into the lock, frantically jiggling the door handle. This went on for what seemed like an eternity, but finally the bolt slid aside and I stole into the room.